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The Warrnambool City Council is using a new weapon in the war on weeds along the foreshore.

Environment staff now use a laptop to log the type of weeds, the size and the GPS location of infestations they encounter.

This information is then displayed on an interactive map, which provides an overall snapshot of the weed problem facing the foreshore.

When weeds are treated, environment staff record the technique used so the effectiveness of various treatments on different weed species can be easily deduced over months and years.

The system is based on MapInfo software, which Council IT staff customised to suit the needs of the environment team.

Warrnambool City Council Environmental Officer Paul Hartrick said that it only took moments to log the relevant details in the field, and that it would make planning and evaluating weed management over the approximately 100ha of foreshore and beyond that much easier.

“It will give us a really simple way to keep track of weed infestations, the different types of weeds we have along the foreshore and how we are eradicating those weeds over a period of time,” he said.

“It will be a really good way of capturing what we’ve got now and then looking at how we’ve been able to reduce the weed population to the benefit of the natural environment.

“While we have only just rolled out the system, further down the track it could potentially be adapted to also map and chart the success of the native vegetation we are planting as well.”